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Tuesday, March 15, 2016

THREE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT NEW(ish) U.S. EDUCATION SECRETARY JOHN KING JR. + 3 more things

By Joy Resmovits | LA Times | http://lat.ms/22jw4OF

On
Monday, the U.S. Senate confirmed John King Jr. as secretary of
education. He will be schools chief only until President Obama leaves
office in January. (Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

March 15, 2016 :: It’s official: John King Jr. isn’t acting anymore.

On Monday, the U.S. Senate voted 49 to 40 to confirm him as President Obama’s second and final secretary of education.
Obama’s first education secretary, Arne Duncan, announced he would leave the post in
October. Obama chose King, then Duncan's deputy and advisor, to succeed
him. At the time, the administration had no plans to seek his
confirmation.

But amid the outcry by some Republicans that an
unconfirmed cabinet member was an unaccountable one, the White House
changed course and put forth the nomination.

“We need an education
secretary confirmed by and accountable to the United States Senate so
that the law fixing No Child Left Behind will be implemented the way
Congress wrote it,” Sen. Lamar Alexander,
a Republican from Tennessee who chairs the Senate education committee,
said in a statement Monday following the confirmation vote.

Even
though King is going to be schools chief only until Obama leaves
office in January, he has a long road ahead, and a full plate.

In its final act of major significance, the Department of Education must regulate the Every Student Succeeds Act,
the bipartisan replacement of the No Child Left Behind Act, the
country's sweeping education law. The details here are key, and have
far-reaching implications for states.

In California, the major question will be whether states can grade schools
without assigning them an overall number — the State Board of Education
is hoping that states can get away with giving parents and taxpayers a suite of different metrics without boiling
them all down to one number. The law requires the state to intervene in
the lowest-performing one-third of schools, among others, and the feds
will likely have to draw a line in the sand as to whether these schools
can be identified without a definitive ranking of how well they’re
doing.

New York City public school teachers are the reason I'm alive,

- Secretary of Education John King

Obama
was pleased with King's confirmation. “John will continue to lead our
efforts to work toward high-quality preschool for all, prepare our kids
for college and a career, make college more affordable, and protect
Americans from the burdens of student debt,” he said in a statement
Monday. “John knows how education can transform a child’s future. He’s
seen it in his own life.”

Who is John King? We reported
on his life story — and his meeting with former gang members in Los
Angeles — when he was first announced as acting secretary of education,
back in October. Here are some excerpts.

1. King had a long road to the administration, and looks unlike any other previous education secretary.

“I
grew up in Brooklyn,” said King, who is African American and Puerto
Rican. “I lost my mom when I was 8, my dad when I was 12. My dad was
very sick before he passed.”As a kid, King said, he was
passed around from family member to family member. “New York City public
school teachers are the reason I’m alive,” he said. They “gave me hope,
hope about what is possible.” ...

His education career
began with his teaching high school social studies in San Juan, Puerto
Rico, and Boston. He became a principal in Brooklyn, founded Roxbury
Preparatory Charter School in Massachusetts, and ultimately served as a
managing director at Uncommon Schools, an organization that managed a
chain of charter schools in three states. He wound up as a senior deputy
commissioner, working under New York state schools chief David
Steiner.

2. He faced intense criticism during his stint as New York’s commissioner of education

King
presided over New York’s implementation of the Common Core standards,
which coincided with the state’s new teacher evaluations. During the
process, parents revolted at town hall meetings, screaming at him and
calling him names.…

Even after the toughest of those
conversations, though, [former New York Board of Regents Chair Merryl]
Tisch said, King was eager to hear feedback. Though she said the
meetings took a physical toll on him, “he handled the pressure
extraordinarily well.” Tisch said King never complained about the
meetings. “I never saw him blow up, I never saw him get frustrated,” she
said.

But his straits continued to worsen. In April
2014, the New York State United Teachers voted “no confidence” in King
and called for him to resign. ...King left his New York position in December 2014 to work for Duncan.

3. King visited Los Angeles this summer to hang out with some former gang members

He
met a woman named Mariana Ruiz, whose path to college was far from
typical. She was nervous to meet this “wonderful man who looked really
clean cut.” …King had been dispatched to Los Angeles by
the federal government for a number of reasons, including to talk to
Homeboy Industries about My Brother’s Keeper. The program is a White House
initiative designed to help level the playing field for young men of
color. At Homeboy, a Los Angeles organization founded to help former and
prospective gang members get back on their feet, people went around the
room and talked about their experiences with the criminal justice and
education systems.

King mostly asked questions and
listened. “We have to focus on successful reentry [into society from
prisons], like Homeboy, nationwide,” he said....

As Ruiz
spoke, she said, King listened. “He was very open-minded to us. He was
very compassionate,” she said. “Not a lot of people are open to people
like us. We get a lot of negative reactions.”